Concept of God arising in multiple, different cultures

[wynn]

By that same logic, then your food is bad because I don't like it.

See why your reasoning fails? When you make a value judgment of an item, you are projecting your values onto that item's attributes, not the other way around; i.e. "This is good because it has walnuts." The walnuts are not inherently or necessarily good, they are simply walnuts. You happen to like the way they taste, their texture, their scent. And to you, they are good. That's a subjective truth. And if you find the world limited compared to your wildest fantasies, okay. I can't begrudge you that. But you can't define walnuts as objectively good, and you can't define the world as limited because you aren't happy that you get old and die.

Do you find that the world is your playground, that the world is just waiting for you, that the world is under your feet and under your thumb?

Perhaps you do.
Not everyone does.


This is what you were replying to:

The fact is that people are generally dissatisfied with things such as aging, illness, death, poverty, famine, peak oil, unemployment etc. etc. and try to undo them.

The fact that they are dissatisfied with those things suggests that they find them, and the material world, limited.

I was precise. Your criticism does not apply.

Not necessarily. For one, why would you immediately conclude an entity is required? In the same way our nervous system controls and maintains itself, why can't the universe control and maintain itself?

But our nervous system most definitely doesn't control and maintain itself.
Add a little too much lead or pesticides to your food, and your nervous system goes crazy.

It could be entirely natural (as in, non-magical) processes allowing for our existence and even keeping it up.

If only there wouldn't be so much contingency in this Universe, you'd have a point.

We just don't know, and assuming the presence of a god seems stupid.

That will depend on what definition of "God" you are working with.

I feel like you can only infer a god if you already expect a god to be there.

At this point, we're just reflecting on some cultural concepts.

So is what we think about heights, or certain kinds of food, or other races. Everything could theoretically affect how we live.

Sure.

The concept of "God" is the one and only cultural concept that we have that, as far as definitions go, encompasses, contextualizes all others.
Which is why on principle, what we mean by "God" affects us the most, and why, for the sake of simplicity, we should start with the concept of "God".

The Universe is a mixed bag, and this is what can make life in it so confusing.
In many ways, it is harsh. And in many ways, it is delightful. This variety can be difficult to make sense of.

That doesn't change the fact that we should be honest with ourselves.

What in particular do you mean here?

 

[Balerion]

Do you find that the world is your playground, that the world is just waiting for you, that the world is under your feet and under your thumb?

Perhaps you do.
Not everyone does.

No idea what you're driving at here.

This is what you were replying to:

And this is what you were replying to:

There's nothing to suggest such a state is even possible, so how does one conclude that the material world is somehow limited?

I was precise. Your criticism does not apply.

You were saying that because people dislike discomfort and sickness and other unpleasant things, the world is therefore limited. This does not follow, and I explained to you why.

But our nervous system most definitely doesn't control and maintain itself.
Add a little too much lead or pesticides to your food, and your nervous system goes crazy.

Non-sequitur. Self-maintenance and -control requires invincibility?

If only there wouldn't be so much contingency in this Universe, you'd have a point.

You've misused the word "contingency" here. Just say what you mean, please.

That will depend on what definition of "God" you are working with.

Nope. Invoking any definition of god is stupid, because there is no reason whatsoever to assume one exists. This stuff all works seemingly without interference. That of course might not actually be the case, but until evidence for some sort of prime mover is discovered, why would you assume the opposite of what observation suggests?

Sure.

The concept of "God" is the one and only cultural concept that we have that, as far as definitions go, encompasses, contextualizes all others.

Well that's just not true. Saying "God did it" is insufficient for context, and scripture is woefully lacking at best, and contradictory at worst. In theory, I suppose having access to the ultimate authority and creator could serve such a purpose, but in practice it doesn't cut the mustard.

Which is why on principle, what we mean by "God" affects us the most,

Another claim that doesn't actually pan out in the real world. Most events in people's lives aren't related to their faith, and as such their faith doesn't play as large a role in their lives as you seem to think it does. We've been through this before with you, where you've made the ludicrous claim that every action a believer makes must be done in the name of their god, or else they're not true believers, which leads to the obviously absurd example of someone pooping for Jesus. In reality, even devout people don't center their lives around their god. I mean, unless you're a monk or something. But living in the world in 2013 means you've got a whole lot of other things on your plate, and most of them will have nothing to do with your beliefs.

and why, for the sake of simplicity, we should start with the concept of "God".

That's ridiculous. By that logic, we should start with me, because I'm actually God. After all, there's just as much evidence in favor of my claim as there is for the gods you're talking about. Think about--I wouldn't even be the first God to walk the earth! This isn't even all that spectacular a claim. So, can we agree that we should start with the concept of me? For simplicity's sake?

Until you show me that a god is even able to exist, let alone that one or more actually does, then starting with the concept of god is as useful as starting with the concept of unicorns.

What in particular do you mean here?

This was your response to the suggestion that we should be honest with ourselves regarding the apparent ambivalence the universe feels toward our existence. I don't see how it in any way negates the notion of being honest with ourselves--as opposed to deluding ourselves with notions of god and cosmic justice--or even relates to the passage you quoted. Yes, the universe can be great and it can also suck, but that dichotomy doesn't mean we should mollycoddle ourselves. It's okay to accept that this is just how things are. And acceptance isn't capitulation to illness or stress, either; you can still become a scientist and try to reverse aging or cure cancer, but appealing to some invisible higher authority isn't going to help anything.

 

[James R]

lightgigantic:

First up, thankyou for taking time to write a lengthy and interesting reply to my post. I have learned more about metonymy from your post.

the best path of intelligence is always that of simply hearing from the right authority.

Who is the right authority when it comes to the many different gods? Each religion has its own set of authorities. And as I noted in my first reply to this thread, religions are largely mutually incompatible with one another. Should I consult an authority on the Greek mythos of Zeus and friends? Or an authority on the middle-eastern god Baal? Or an authority on the Aztec gods? Or the Christian God?

It seems that none of these authorities can give me reliable evidence of the existence of any god, especially given that many of them would deny the existence of the others' gods.

However, given that this path may not be open to us for various reasons (like for instance we might be puffed up with our own supposedly great intellectual prowess), there are more "scenic" routes available through practically any of the avenues given

As a scientist, I'm uncomfortable with arguments from authority - religious ones in particular, for the reasons I've given above. I'm unwilling to believe based on faith in some authority or other. That leaves me with little option but to apply my intellect, supposedly great or otherwise. So, I tend to look at the evidence.

Moving on...

Most metonymies are so common we never notice them.

Take for example, someone showing you a photograph of the face of a little girl and saying "That's my daughter." You smile and never think that you've used a metonymic process to comprehend that the face of a person stands for the whole person. Imagine you had been shown a picture of the girl's foot and they had said "That's my daughter!"

I'm not convinced that the mug shot actually "stands for" the daughter herself. Nobody ever mistakes the photograph for the girl herself. When you're showing a photo, there's no need to say "That's a photo of my daughter". "That's my daughter" suffices - although the former sentence is still often heard. As for the face standing in for the daughter instead of the foot, that's a matter of human interest more than anything else. "This is a photo of my daughter's foot" is not likely to be as engaging to the average person as "This is a photo of my daughter's face".

So, I'm not sure at this stage that there's much more to metonymy than a feature of the use of language, in that metonymy merely seems to be the use of the word representing part of an object or thing to represent the whole thing. The face of the daughter represents the daughter, but only in a shorthand way of speaking.

Maybe I'm still missing something important....?

Can you think of any empirical claim that isn't framed by a threshold of the macro or micro-cosm (like, say a portrait of one's daughter that isn't framed by the edge of the photo)?

I don't really know what you mean by "framed by a threshold of the macro or micro-cosm". Do you mean anything more complicated than that human-scale objects are made of tiny parts and exist in a larger cosmos? Since that is necessarily true of all such objects, of course I can't think of any such object that isn't "framed" in that way.

Perhaps you can give me an example of a claim that isn't framed by the threshold you're talking about, and tell me what kind of a claim it is. Please don't use God as an example, though, because as I understand it you're trying to use this line of discussion to show me how God isn't empirical. I assume there must be things other than God that lack the framing you're talking about.

A "tacit" term is one that exists purely in relation to other tacit terms . The fact that empiricism can only deal with things with a necessarily incomplete picture of things (much like a photo is an incomplete image... yet serves its purpose well enough to say "this is my daughter " or whatever) means that it deals (exclusively) with tacit terms. This is why all empirical definitions suffer from regress.

Again, I have to ask what kind of system of knowledge can deal with the "complete picture of things". We are human beings. We can't pay attention to everything at once.

If I had to describe [this] right hand of mine, which I am now holding up, I may
say different things of it: I may state its size, its shape, its color, its tissue, the
chemical compound of its bones, its cells, and perhaps add some more particulars;
but, however far I go, I shall never reach a point where my description will be
completed: logically speaking, it is always possible to extend the description by
adding some detail or other.*
In his book The Tacit Dimension, scientist Michael Polyani writes that
perception has inexhaustible profundity containing boundless undisclosed,
perhaps yet unthinkable, experiences.* In other words, we always perceive more
than we can tell. Polyani argues that most of what we know in life is tacit as
opposed to explicit: it cannot be captured in words or even in symbols.

Having read only this from him, I am inclined to disagree with Polyani. I don't think that perception (by which I mean human perception - perhaps he doesn't) has "inexhaustible profundity..." I think that our perception is limited. And I can't think of any examples of things we can perceive yet not describe in some way. Can you?

A common experience of something explicit could be a very dear and close friend to whom we are bound by affection - our experience of them is something indivisible (IOW there is no meaningful way to break down our experience of them into a series of parts which we could then extrapolate to other people or objects as a substitute) and even a partial experience of something of them (like say hearing their voice recorded) is capable of "taking us back" to the taste or savoring of our previous estimation of their essence.

Again, I disagree. I think that such an experience can be broken down into a series of parts. After all, that dear and close friend is such a friend for various reasons, which we can express. And other close friends are probably close friends for similar reasons; thus we extrapolate to other people etc.

Let me know if you need me to explain why hearing the recording is not technically a metonym (at least for a person who has had direct experience of the person speaking) and why someone viewing a photograph of another's daughter they have never met is a metonym.

All this metonym stuff is interesting enough, but I don't really see what it has to do with the failures of empiricism or, going way back, to the actual topic of the thread. So, it seems I may need you to explain in more detail.

And I'm not sure what you mean by the "essence" of something like a cup of flour.

Well I guess one would say it was made up of approximately x grams of grains which results in approximately x million particles of wheat flour and which then goes on and on to a guess at how many quarks, etc until the subject disappears into experimental ideas on advanced physics (ie we reach the threshold of our empirical micro-cosmic investigation of things.

Do you think that a cup of flour has an "essence" beyond what you have listed here?

What I'm most interested in, I think, is what "essence" of the cup you think is beyond the reach of empiricism. And why that essence should matter to us.

What system of acquiring knowledge will give me reliable knowledge about what a cup of flour is "essentially"?

Do you think it could be a very powerful microscope, which could detect the ultimate fundamental, totally indivisible element of existence?
Or do you think the boundaries of the microcosm are practically limitless?

A very powerful microscope would give me empirical knowledge, but you're claiming that things have an "essence" beyond empirical knowledge. Or am I misinterpreting you?

My personal hunch is that the microcosm is not limitless. You can't keep cutting matter into smaller and smaller pieces forever. I am reasonably confident that there's a simplest substrate at the bottom - something like superstrings, perhaps. How about you?

 

[James R]

wynn:

I'm talking about entertaining particular ideas, not about conclusions or holding stances.

I have not concluded that God is a magnanimous being. Nor have I concluded that God is an evil being.

I am simply entertaining various notions of "God" that are available in our culture.

Recall what the topic of the thread is. The question was whether the many different notions of god/gods in our and other cultures provide evidence of the existence of such a god or gods. Do you have an opinion on that question?

Read again: I said I don't have the concern about which religion is the right one or why.

The opening poster has the concern about whether any of the religions may be right. What do you think about that? If you really have no interest in the question, why are you in this thread?

Why do you think religions were (progressively) invented? And on what grounds do you think that?

Do keep up. That is the question I have been asking you and some others.

Sorry. I misinterpreted what you wrote.

There's a lot of good evidence for the progressive invention of religion, from different avenues I mentioned earlier in the thread. We see, for example, a clear historical progression from animistic or pantheistic religious ideas though to ideas of spirits inhabiting objects, through to personified gods thought to inhabit inaccessible places such as high mountains, through to sky gods (including the progression from polytheism to monotheism), through to the kind of metaphysical ideas of gods we have today.

A universe that would function automatically would have to be unconditioned, uncaused, self-existent, or it couldn't function automatically.

This is a truism, a logical conclusion.

1. Only unconditioned, uncaused, self-existent things can function automatically.
2. The universe is an unconditioned, uncaused, self-existent thing.
3. Therefore the universe can function automatically.

By George! You're right. It's a logical conclusion!

How did you establish the premisses (1) and (2)? Please explain.

You are claiming that premise 2 applies, not I. And you are the one claiming the conclusion (3) applies; not I.

What issue do you take with the first premise?

An example: My watch functions automatically, yet it is not "unconditioned" (if I have the correct meaning of that word), nor is it "uncaused" or "self-existent".

Or do you mean something different by "automatic" than I do? For me "automatic" means operating with minimal human intervention and without external control. When it comes to the universe being "automatic", we can drop the human intervention level to zero.

You're wrong to say that I claim that premise 2 is true. I must say I'm not sure what you mean by "unconditioned" or "self-existent" (can you give me an example of anything that is "self-existent"?) But I'd be very wary of asserting that the universe is uncaused. In our current state of knowledge, we simple don't know what caused the universe, or whether there was a cause at all.

The deist is arguing that a perpetuum mobile is possible: God created the Universe, and then stepped back, as the Universe runs automatically from then on, needing no input from God anymore.
This is the reasoning I objected.

I find your reasoning obscure. But maybe it's just me.

You claim there is no evidence that all humans are equal. You need to unpack the term "equal" in order to justify that claim. Next, you need to make sure that the kind of equality you're talking about there is the same kind of equality that the Declaration of Human Rights is talking about.

Frankly, I think you're in over your head in trying to make that particular analogy.

Oh, you know damn well what I'm talking about.

Empirically, humans are most definitely not equal: they are not of equal size, weight, skin color, number of digits, limbs, eyes, ears etc., they are not of the same socio-economic background, they do not have the same education, they are not of the same sex etc.

The declaration of Human Rights is talking about human equality in an abstract ontological sense that is impossible to evidence empirically.

I always thought that the Declaration was talking about equality of particular Rights. It's the Declaration of Human Rights, after all. It's about equality under the law, not equality of size, weight, numbers of ears etc.

 

[wellwisher]

The declaration of Human Rights is talking about human equality in an abstract ontological sense that is impossible to evidence empirically.

The term god given rights was added to reinforce the abstraction that certain rights are not subjectively defined, by humans, but rather follow an objective standard similar to natural instincts. If it was man given rights, the man in charge will fix the deck of laws in his favor, since man invented them, he can reinvent them when it wants.

If it is god given rights, even the leaders are under the same laws and can't fix the deck to meet their own needs. President Obama is fixing the deck to pay off his own constituency at the expense of the tax payers. He is in favor of man-made rights based on the subjectivity needed to make this look legitimate. God given rights would make it harder to enslave half of the population, to long term debt, without their consent. Manmade laws can call out the goons to collect from the slaves. Atheism has unknowingly favored subjective law over objective law, simply because the word God was there and that is enough to make them irrational; zero tolerance.

Freedom of speech is there so all human output data is allowed; random data generators. This vast output is often censored based on laws of man, which attempt to stack the deck one way. For example, PC language is only allows one group free speech. This is the ruling class that likes to stack the deck with tons of manmade laws. God given would check this with objectivity.

A slave is someone who is forced to work without just compensation. If you are justly compensated one is called an employee. Compensation has to be objective in terms of value. If the king says you are happy because I said so, therefore you are not a slave, this is not an objective standard. The tax payer, who pays more taxes that he gets back in government goods and serves, is being enslaved for subjective reasons. God given rights does not allow this, but man made rights can call this good since it is not about individual objective value.

 

[elte]

To be clear: I don't "believe in" reincarnation; I consider it a morally beneficial outlook. There's an important difference between the two.

But I specifically do not believe that this one lifetime of 70 years or so is all there is to a person's life.

Maybe there is a culture clash there because that doesn't feel very right somehow to look at something as being worthy of believing based on its morality instead of its trueness. Trueness ought to be the primary criteria, yet whether one acts upon it, or what they do with it depends on morality.

Also, can you elaborate a bit on what else there is to the 70 years? I alluded sometime in the past that leaving things or deeds behind is not a satisfactory substitute. That's because one isn't aware of whether or not other people appreciate the deeds or things, or if they were helpful or not. If people doing things can maintain contact, at least in some minimal way, then they can benefit from the awareness.

You were arguing for the possibility of a deist /G/od and a deist universe, and I objected it.
If I am in charge of cooking for you, and you regularly find meals ready at set times, then, even though I may not be in your house, you cannot but conclude that I was there, and real.
In a similar manner, if the Universe requires to be controlled, maintained, and we see that it is being controlled and maintained, then, even though we don't see the entity in charge of control and maintenance, we can infer that this entity exists, is real, does the job.

I'd like you to reply again to my question, this time in more detail.

I see the situation of the universe functioning different from that. It isn't being maintained but is running down into entropy.

If you came here and cooked regularly, then I agree the presence is real within the timespan of the services provided.

I don't agree with the controller of the universe idea, though, because I find a more plausible explanation would be that the only role that a hypothetical god played was inventing the natural laws and then letting everything go. That would explain why everything is predictable based on those laws once we pin them down. To support the controller idea, we would have to detect miracles, which haven't ever held up to good scrutiny.

I asked- Why entertain only such definitions of God in which you come out the loser?

Who we think God is or could be does affect how we go about life, though.

How good is knowledge if it isn't true? In a similar vein, with true knowledge one generally doesn't lose if the alternative is untruth. Now, on a slightly different note, some might think not knowing it is better, and they say that they wouldn't want to know some bad details about their futures, but that is different from having wrong information that leads to inappropriate action.

Then there is the 'prosperity gospel,' which is some really anti-loser theology. So if life is just a game to win and come out on top, I doubt that God would be playing along. Yet that is different from having what one needs to function well and lead a decent life. Attitude is very important. Alas, it's likely all baloney and we may as well stick with our mammalian instinct to seek justice and feel appreciated and significant.

More on the idea of the loser coming up.

Bad faith creates scenarios in which the one thinking and acting in bad faith ends up being the loser, by their own standards.

There doesn't really seem to be too much of a problem with that way of viewing it (except pairing 'the' with 'loser'. More on that later.), considering it's by one's own standards, and after breaking it down and examining the parts, so long as you see it similarly. The most important component of faith is the object of the faith. It needs to be worthy of belief, and that most usually requires it to be true. It needs to be true within the confines of one's environment. In this case, the object is oneself, which is always true in that it is real so long as we accept the saying, "i think, therefore I am."

Next, the goodness or badness comes into play. Bad faith has a legal sense of fraudulent deception (legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com). It seems weird trying to fit that to the statement being examined. A better view is that there is really no good or bad faith, just stronger or weaker.

The loser part is last. It's a word charged with very negative connotations when directed toward another person, but I can see that you use it as a tool of self-critique for personal motivation purposes, and I can relate to that. Whether one loses can be very hard or impossible to judge truly. Often times what appears to be a loss appears to be less so later, and oppositely, what appears as a gain can later be seen as a loss. This is why I have come to see the most prudent course as avoiding situations that involve big changes, risks, input, or conflict, especially since the losses naturally hurt more than the gains feel good.

A problem that I have with the loser portion of the sentence involves using the phrase 'the loser' because that implies there is also 'the winner,' and this is a socially unhealthy way to view one's place in the world. it's too dog-eat-dog. Just changing it to 'a loser' makes it better.

So I hope my words for the sentence keeps the meaning you've intended: Believe in oneself in a way to remain as well-off as possible.

Universe is a mixed bag, and this is what can make life in it so confusing.
In many ways, it is harsh. And in many ways, it is delightful. This variety can be difficult to make sense of.

Evolution seems responsible for that. We are fairly well adapted to the environment. Deficiencies in that adaption might explain the pain portion. It would be totally awful to be out in the open on Mars without a space suit. And even with one, it could get pretty dull being in such a desert.

 

[wynn]

Maybe there is a culture clash there because that doesn't feel very right somehow to look at something as being worthy of believing based on its morality instead of its trueness. Trueness ought to be the primary criteria, yet whether one acts upon it, or what they do with it depends on morality.

How do you know something is true?

Also, can you elaborate a bit on what else there is to the 70 years?

My point is that limiting one's perspective to one lifetime, thinking that those 70 years or so - ie. this one lifetime - is all there is to a person - has pernicious consequences.
One may be undecided as to whether there is reincarnation or not; but an explicit belief that there is no reincarnation and that this one life is all there has consequences that the view that there is reincarnation doesn't have.

Ie. if we believe that this one lifetime is all there is, we will necessarily limit the scope of things which we will pursue. We won't prusue things that may require several lifetimes to attain (such as enlightenment). Even the pursuit of material things that require a lot of effort (such as becoming a millionaire, or getting a PhD) can be difficult, as we live in the awareness that our efforts could be cut short anytime, long before completion.

I see the situation of the universe functioning different from that. It isn't being maintained but is running down into entropy.

Then you basically have the same view for the life of the Universe as you have for the life of people and other living beings - ie. the one lifetime conception.

I don't agree with the controller of the universe idea, though, because I find a more plausible explanation would be that the only role that a hypothetical god played was inventing the natural laws and then letting everything go.

Then you need to explain - in the abstract - how that would be possible.
If God is the First Being, the Creator, the Source of everything else, how can there be anything that is not in God?
And if this is the case, then how could God not be involved with it in some way or other?

There is a difference between "God is not involved" and "God is not involved in ways I like."
The second one surely applies sometimes; the first cannot even be abstractly shown to be the case.

That would explain why everything is predictable based on those laws once we pin them down. To support the controller idea, we would have to detect miracles, which haven't ever held up to good scrutiny.

Or we'd just have to consider other posible explanations.

How good is knowledge if it isn't true?

Again, how do you know something is true?

In this case, the object is oneself, which is always true in that it is real so long as we accept the saying, "i think, therefore I am."

I think you're talking a lot for granted there, assuming as your self things that aren't actually your self.

Next, the goodness or badness comes into play. Bad faith has a legal sense of fraudulent deception (legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com). It seems weird trying to fit that to the statement being examined. A better view is that there is really no good or bad faith, just stronger or weaker.

The loser part is last.

This was what I said:

Bad faith creates scenarios in which the one thinking and acting in bad faith ends up being the loser, by their own standards.

Going around thinking "Nobody will ever love me" is an example of bad faith, and acting accordingly, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Bad faith is in esteeming oneself too lowly, and in esteeming others - and God - too lowly.
And such low esteem of self, others, or God has negative consequences in one's life.

So I hope my words for the sentence keeps the meaning you've intended: Believe in oneself in a way to remain as well-off as possible.

But you're not doing that.
You operate out of an inferior notion of God in which you end up horrified by aging, illness and death, helpless about it, and God seems like a monster who just sits there and lets you suffer. And then you actually suffer.

My point is that it is possible to conceive of God (and at this point, conceptions is all we have anyway) in a way that doesn't result in that horror for yourself.

Evolution seems responsible for that.

If evolution is responsible for such things, then why worry about variety?
If evolution is responsible for such things, then why worry about there being, say, people who are not eager about stem cell research?

 

[James R]

wynn:

My point is that limiting one's perspective to one lifetime, thinking that those 70 years or so - ie. this one lifetime - is all there is to a person - has pernicious consequences.
One may be undecided as to whether there is reincarnation or not; but an explicit belief that there is no reincarnation and that this one life is all there has consequences that the view that there is reincarnation doesn't have.

And vice versa, of course.

Ie. if we believe that this one lifetime is all there is, we will necessarily limit the scope of things which we will pursue. We won't prusue things that may require several lifetimes to attain (such as enlightenment). Even the pursuit of material things that require a lot of effort (such as becoming a millionaire, or getting a PhD) can be difficult, as we live in the awareness that our efforts could be cut short anytime, long before completion.

I don't think your PhD qualification will be recognised in your next life, so believing in the next life shouldn't motivate you to get that PhD. That's assuming you don't also believe that you carry this life's skills and knowledge to the next life. But that's an obviously untenable belief. Not many babies are observed to discourse at PhD level, for example. So, as far as I am aware, no major religion makes that claim.

It's an interesting question of how one makes any progress towards enlightenment when one cannot carry over any knowledge from one life to the next. I am aware that religions that support the idea of reincarnation fudge this with ideas such as karma.

In fact, belief in reincarnation may lead to a fatalistic attitude to life. You're stuck with your lot in this life because of things that happened in your past lives. The best you can hope for is that things will be better in the next life. This can lead to a tendency not to pursue goals that are in fact attainable in this life.

 

[Balerion]

My point is that limiting one's perspective to one lifetime, thinking that those 70 years or so - ie. this one lifetime - is all there is to a person - has pernicious consequences.
One may be undecided as to whether there is reincarnation or not; but an explicit belief that there is no reincarnation and that this one life is all there has consequences that the view that there is reincarnation doesn't have.

Ie. if we believe that this one lifetime is all there is, we will necessarily limit the scope of things which we will pursue. We won't prusue things that may require several lifetimes to attain (such as enlightenment). Even the pursuit of material things that require a lot of effort (such as becoming a millionaire, or getting a PhD) can be difficult, as we live in the awareness that our efforts could be cut short anytime, long before completion.

Knowing that we could die at any time doesn't seem to be what stops people from pursuing their goals. I've never heard of a PhD candidate dropping out of med school because he knows he's just one drunk driver away from the morgue.

There are some pretty dire consequences to believing you have more than one life, as well. You can put things off, you can fail to appreciate the nature of existence. You can waste your life on pointless endeavors that don't bear fruit until your fourth reincarnation. There is literally no end to the amount of stupid things you could do when chasing a juvenile illusion such as reincarnation.

 

[elte]

I meant to hit preview

 

[wellwisher]

Knowing that we could die at any time doesn't seem to be what stops people from pursuing their goals. I've never heard of a PhD candidate dropping out of med school because he knows he's just one drunk driver away from the morgue.

There are some pretty dire consequences to believing you have more than one life, as well. You can put things off, you can fail to appreciate the nature of existence. You can waste your life on pointless endeavors that don't bear fruit until your fourth reincarnation. There is literally no end to the amount of stupid things you could do when chasing a juvenile illusion such as reincarnation.

The length of time one plans their life, will have an impact on their behavior. The shorter term one plans, the more impulsive they will become. If I have 2 minutes for lunch, I need to grab and devour, anything close. While the longer term one plans the more controlled and organized you will need to be. If I have two hours for lunch, I can organize and cook a menu.

If you compare two college freshman, with the first wanting to be a doctor so he has to maintain high grades, versus a live for the moment student, which of the two will need require more willpower and more planning?

Let us scale up further. Say you planned for beyond your own life. We will compare this person, to someone who plans only up to death. The first scenario is a person who is thinking in terms of setting up his children and grandchildren, who will out live him. The second is not concerned about the kids, beyond his own death, but will zero resources by death. Both will approach life differently. The long term planner needs to use more willpower, to avoid the low road since it squanders resources that need to be gathered for the distant future. He may also have to work harder and wiser.

Let us keep on extrapolating. Say one planned up to one thousands years in the future. We will come that to someone who only plans in the now. The first person, who is thinking that far ahead, will feel the need to will make an important contribution to culture that will be there for many generations. The second only has to out drink his friends on that day and that is his contribution to his friends.

The goal of eternal life was to leave the impulsive animal man behind in search of the divine man. Atheism goes the other way. It tries to reduce the time frame from eternal back to animal man, the ape.

Even if you don't agree with religion, I think they were more intelligent in terms of evolution of man. They understood how time scale of perception will influence who one will approach their life, with longer planning needing and developing more will power. If you wanted to dumb down a culture you shorter their time perception; zoo animals.

 

[elte]

How do you know something is true?

We are never sure about anything but we can think something is true based on our place in life. If one jumps out into the street in front of a car, then one can expect to be smashed. It's a matter of sensory input being evaluated all our lives and then conclusions about truth being drawn. I mentioned earlier something to the effect that truth is true within our existence. There is always the chance we are wrong, but evidence says otherwise. For example, X event has always resulted in Y effect.

My point is that limiting one's perspective to one lifetime, thinking that those 70 years or so - ie. this one lifetime - is all there is to a person - has pernicious consequences.
One may be undecided as to whether there is reincarnation or not; but an explicit belief that there is no reincarnation and that this one life is all there has consequences that the view that there is reincarnation doesn't have.

Ie. if we believe that this one lifetime is all there is, we will necessarily limit the scope of things which we will pursue. We won't prusue things that may require several lifetimes to attain (such as enlightenment). Even the pursuit of material things that require a lot of effort (such as becoming a millionaire, or getting a PhD) can be difficult, as we live in the awareness that our efforts could be cut short anytime, long before completion.

I've seen a lot of people lately improperly using appeal to consequences as a reason to accept or not the truth of something. Bad consequences being brought to light by a belief don't invalidate what is believed.

I agree that the consequences of trying to bite off too much are a very important concern to us. Finding a suitable pace in life is a good idea.

Then you basically have the same view for the life of the Universe as you have for the life of people and other living beings - ie. the one lifetime conception.

That's not really the thing I mean even if it might have appeared so. The universe isn't alive and the state of inertness that comes eventually doesn't matter to it like it does to us. We couldn't live in a universe where no energy was accessible to sustain us.

Then you need to explain - in the abstract - how that would be possible.
If God is the First Being, the Creator, the Source of everything else, how can there be anything that is not in God?
And if this is the case, then how could God not be involved with it in some way or other?
There is a difference between "God is not involved" and "God is not involved in ways I like."
The second one surely applies sometimes; the first cannot even be abstractly shown to be the case.

Without using an analogy to our everyday lives, one could just say God doesn't exist any longer but the natural laws do.

Or we'd just have to consider other possible explanations.

We have done that a lot and the results don't hold up to evaluation.

Again, how do you know something is true?

Cause and effect evaluation in our environment is all we have been able to determine to work to find out what is the truest things we know of. Being human, we make a lot of mistakes. However, 1+1 = 2 always seems to hold up.

I think you're talking a lot for granted there, assuming as your self things that aren't actually your self.

Our thoughts are our own, even if influenced by what we take in through our senses. They aren't completely our own in the sense we don't consciously originate them. Our thoughts basically come to our selves, but not ever from divine sources. The divine is a manmade idea. It goes along with why we don't have free will. We can make choices, but not freely. I guess if someone out there parrots some talking point, that can be construed as someone else's thought, but that type of thing is rare for people posting on sciforums, I'd say. So, as far as someone having thoughts influenced by God, the notion that people get ideas from God doesn't have credible evidence.
.

This was what I said:

Bad faith creates scenarios in which the one thinking and acting in bad faith ends up being the loser, by their own standards.

Going around thinking "Nobody will ever love me" is an example of bad faith, and acting accordingly, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Bad faith is in esteeming oneself too lowly, and in esteeming others - and God - too lowly.
And such low esteem of self, others, or God has negative consequences in one's life.

it's a cold-hearted world, using a figure of speech. Most people, and apparently any gods out there, really don't care about us at all.

But you're not doing that.
You operate out of an inferior notion of God in which you end up horrified by aging, illness and death, helpless about it, and God seems like a monster who just sits there and lets you suffer. And then you actually suffer.

My point is that it is possible to conceive of God (and at this point, conceptions is all we have anyway) in a way that doesn't result in that horror for yourself.

Okay, thanks for elaborating. Yes, I'm fading away as I type this and no evidence exists otherwise. One could believe that one will live to be 1000 and decide to take a sleeping potion and wake up in 100 years to see a new world. That would be a fatal mistake if the potion didn't also put life processes into suspended animation.

If evolution is responsible for such things, then why worry about variety?
If evolution is responsible for such things, then why worry about there being, say, people who are not eager about stem cell research?

It's not something to be accepted without resistance. I call nature tyrannous and we should try to change it to our benefit. So, stem cell researchers out there, please work really hard.

 

[lightgigantic]

lightgigantic:



Who is the right authority when it comes to the many different gods? Each religion has its own set of authorities. And as I noted in my first reply to this thread, religions are largely mutually incompatible with one another. Should I consult an authority on the Greek mythos of Zeus and friends? Or an authority on the middle-eastern god Baal? Or an authority on the Aztec gods? Or the Christian God?

First of all, its not clear on what basis you are saying religions are largely incompatible.
That aside, its kind of big topic (kind of like saying trying to determine which authorities in the field of archaeology, linguistics or anthropology provides the most authoritative picture of history), but in short the one that encompasses the many stands out.

It seems that none of these authorities can give me reliable evidence of the existence of any god, especially given that many of them would deny the existence of the others' gods.

If you are looking at things in terms of numbers, I think its clear that many of them don't, particularly if you are citing polytheistic systems.

As a scientist, I'm uncomfortable with arguments from authority - religious ones in particular, for the reasons I've given above.

On the contrary, as a scientist, I'm pretty sure that you accept many issues on authority (and assume that many statements you give should be accepted on your authority). Sure, some times it plays out as a self defense mechanism or whatever for the institution but in general it simple allows things to be progressive (since you don't have to be busy re-inventing the wheel all the time .... although when the question of re-inventing the wheel comes up, it does tend to be met with an unsavory reaction)

I'm unwilling to believe based on faith in some authority or other. That leaves me with little option but to apply my intellect, supposedly great or otherwise. So, I tend to look at the evidence.

Moving on...

which then falls back to the limitations of evidence one could hope to gather by a particular method ... which is why we are having this discussion I suppose

I'm not convinced that the mug shot actually "stands for" the daughter herself. Nobody ever mistakes the photograph for the girl herself. When you're showing a photo, there's no need to say "That's a photo of my daughter". "That's my daughter" suffices - although the former sentence is still often heard. As for the face standing in for the daughter instead of the foot, that's a matter of human interest more than anything else. "This is a photo of my daughter's foot" is not likely to be as engaging to the average person as "This is a photo of my daughter's face".

That point is simply an introductory example to the concept of metonomy. IOW how we look at part of something and extrapolate that to the whole of something in order (in the case of metonomy anyway) to define and understand something. They mentioned the foot just to highlight this phenomena (since a foot is just as much a part of the daughter as anything else) - granted that its the case that these things tend to delve into a sort of cultural bias that places some things as more effective metonyms than others

So, I'm not sure at this stage that there's much more to metonymy than a feature of the use of language, in that metonymy merely seems to be the use of the word representing part of an object or thing to represent the whole thing. The face of the daughter represents the daughter, but only in a shorthand way of speaking.

Maybe I'm still missing something important....?

I highlighted "cognitive" in the earlier post. Inasmuch as language is a prop for the cognitive analysis of things, it shares a similarity with empiricism. IOW the face of the girl "works" (at least more effectively) as a cognitive tool in the comprehension of "daughter", moreso than "foot" (even though both are metonyms).
The thing with metonyms is that there is always the possibility that what you are looking at (and extrapolating to the whole) could actually be part of a different whole (this is why metonyms distinguish themselves from metaphors, since they only have access to one domain of experience). So for instance you might see a photo of your daughter, but then it reveals that the image is cropped and when it pans out you see that it is a wax sculpture of your daughter. Yet one can get around this and have direct experience with one's daughter (a second domain of experience). In the same manner, the history of empiricism has a fluid history of changing, refining and rejecting ideas derived about the manner of their working because is purely metononymic (so to carry through with the example, they have no access to the daughter in the flesh - or the explicit term)

I don't really know what you mean by "framed by a threshold of the macro or micro-cosm". Do you mean anything more complicated than that human-scale objects are made of tiny parts and exist in a larger cosmos? Since that is necessarily true of all such objects, of course I can't think of any such object that isn't "framed" in that way.

Sure, there is the argument that everything we perceive is but a metonym. Such modes of thinking effectively rule out the existence of anything explicit (so for instance, in the eyes of such people, the term of god is framed as yet another metonymically derived article). This runs into problems however when one is insisting that there is an empirical foundation for the disbelief of god as it is defined by theism (IOW when you start meeting the term on its own grounds, as opposed to sheathing it in a context of one's own values/paradigm/world view, it doesn't work, since god is an explicit term ... and explicit terms are unassailable/unavailable to metonymic cognitive processes ).



I got to go at the moment but I will come back later today and finish this response

 

[wynn]

Knowing that we could die at any time doesn't seem to be what stops people from pursuing their goals. I've never heard of a PhD candidate dropping out of med school because he knows he's just one drunk driver away from the morgue.

And psychotherapy and other kinds of therapy are such lucrative business - in that they help people to repress the awareness that their efforts may be cut short anytime.

There are some pretty dire consequences to believing you have more than one life, as well. You can put things off, you can fail to appreciate the nature of existence. You can waste your life on pointless endeavors that don't bear fruit until your fourth reincarnation. There is literally no end to the amount of stupid things you could do when chasing a juvenile illusion such as reincarnation.

Only if you believe that there is no exit from the cycle of rebirth, and that the way life is usually lived is as good as it gets.

I don't think your PhD qualification will be recognised in your next life, so believing in the next life shouldn't motivate you to get that PhD. That's assuming you don't also believe that you carry this life's skills and knowledge to the next life. But that's an obviously untenable belief. Not many babies are observed to discourse at PhD level, for example. So, as far as I am aware, no major religion makes that claim.

It's an interesting question of how one makes any progress towards enlightenment when one cannot carry over any knowledge from one life to the next. I am aware that religions that support the idea of reincarnation fudge this with ideas such as karma.

If you think enlightenment is about PhD's, fat bank accounts and such - then you are at odds with the major religions that teach reincarnation or rebirth.

In fact, belief in reincarnation may lead to a fatalistic attitude to life. You're stuck with your lot in this life because of things that happened in your past lives. The best you can hope for is that things will be better in the next life. This can lead to a tendency not to pursue goals that are in fact attainable in this life.

No, what you describe is not the consequence of belief in reincarnation, but a consequence of an incomplete belief in reincarnation.

Often, when people think of karma and reincarnation, even some Easterners, they have a negative, fatalistic, deterministic concept of it, due to looking only at what the consequences of their misdeeds may be, while ignoring that their good deeds have karmic consequences too.

 

[Balerion]

And psychotherapy and other kinds of therapy are such lucrative business - in that they help people to repress the awareness that their efforts may be cut short anytime.

Your opinions on therapy amount to a child's tantrum. You have no basis for these beliefs, and no answer when people correct your misguided assertions (except to run away, of course) so your opinion is irrelevant.

And try to stay on-topic, please.

Only if you believe that there is no exit from the cycle of rebirth, and that the way life is usually lived is as good as it gets.

That's not true at all. People are careless all the time. They flake on things. It's human nature, and a (ridiculous) belief in reincarnation wouldn't change that.

 

[wynn]

Recall what the topic of the thread is. The question was whether the many different notions of god/gods in our and other cultures provide evidence of the existence of such a god or gods. Do you have an opinion on that question?

I stated it right in my first post in this thread, right at the beginning of the thread.

The opening poster has the concern about whether any of the religions may be right. What do you think about that? If you really have no interest in the question, why are you in this thread?

Of course I have an interest in the question. My interest in this question is: How come people ask the question which religion is the right one, or whether any of them is right? What do they want to accomplish by getting an answer to it? If they are worried about which religion is the right one, how come they are worried about that?

There's a lot of good evidence for the progressive invention of religion, from different avenues I mentioned earlier in the thread. We see, for example, a clear historical progression from animistic or pantheistic religious ideas though to ideas of spirits inhabiting objects, through to personified gods thought to inhabit inaccessible places such as high mountains, through to sky gods (including the progression from polytheism to monotheism), through to the kind of metaphysical ideas of gods we have today.

This isn't evidence, this is a particular culturally-specific inference, a borderline informal logical fallacy in which it is assumed that a necessarily selective observation of a sequence is adequate for explaining a phenomenon.

An example: My watch functions automatically, yet it is not "unconditioned" (if I have the correct meaning of that word), nor is it "uncaused" or "self-existent".

It runs automatically only in a very relative sense, only temporarily - until the batteries run out or the mechanism in it unwinds.

Because that "temporarily" is relatively long for ordinary human purposes (say a year or so for an average battery), we mistakenly have the perception that a watch runs automatically.

Or do you mean something different by "automatic" than I do? For me "automatic" means operating with minimal human intervention and without external control.

And yet if a rock falls on your watch, or if the watch somehow ends up in a furnace, or falls into a tank with liquid nitrogen, etc. the watch doesn't work anymore.
So there is external control necessary, we just usually don't acknowledge it. The watch itself is helpless against falling rocks, furnaces, etc. If the watch could really work automatically, then falling rocks, furnaces etc. wouldn't pose a problem to its functioning.

For things to work - even as we perceive them to work automatically - there is a great number of things that must take place to make this possible.

When it comes to the universe being "automatic", we can drop the human intervention level to zero.

The human intervention level in the Universe may be small, but that doesn't mean that other factors aren't involved.


An atheist idea is that God is not necessary for there to be a Universe and for the Universe to function. This is the idea we have started this discussion from here.

You're wrong to say that I claim that premise 2 is true.

You worked out the premises of the argument.

I must say I'm not sure what you mean by "unconditioned" or "self-existent" (can you give me an example of anything that is "self-existent"?)

We're talking about philosophical concepts.

If you want to talk about this from the empirical perspective, everything LG said applies.

But I'd be very wary of asserting that the universe is uncaused. In our current state of knowledge, we simple don't know what caused the universe, or whether there was a cause at all.

In that case, you can't rightfully take issue with people who believe otherwise than you.

I always thought that the Declaration was talking about equality of particular Rights. It's the Declaration of Human Rights, after all. It's about equality under the law, not equality of size, weight, numbers of ears etc.

Can it be empirically evidenced that all humans have those rights, and that because there exists such empirical evidence, we can conclude that the Declaration of Human Rights is evidence-based?

 

[wynn]

Your opinions on therapy amount to a child's tantrum. You have no basis for these beliefs, and no answer when people correct your misguided assertions (except to run away, of course) so your opinion is irrelevant.

And try to stay on-topic, please.

That's not true at all. People are careless all the time. They flake on things. It's human nature, and a (ridiculous) belief in reincarnation wouldn't change that.

I can't help you if you don't read what I say.

E.g.

My point is that limiting one's perspective to one lifetime, thinking that those 70 years or so - ie. this one lifetime - is all there is to a person - has pernicious consequences.
One may be undecided as to whether there is reincarnation or not; but an explicit belief that there is no reincarnation and that this one life is all there has consequences that the view that there is reincarnation doesn't have.

Ie. if we believe that this one lifetime is all there is, we will necessarily limit the scope of things which we will pursue. We won't prusue things that may require several lifetimes to attain (such as enlightenment). Even the pursuit of material things that require a lot of effort (such as becoming a millionaire, or getting a PhD) can be difficult, as we live in the awareness that our efforts could be cut short anytime, long before completion.

There are some pretty dire consequences to believing you have more than one life, as well. You can put things off, you can fail to appreciate the nature of existence. You can waste your life on pointless endeavors that don't bear fruit until your fourth reincarnation. There is literally no end to the amount of stupid things you could do when chasing a juvenile illusion such as reincarnation.

Only if you believe that there is no exit from the cycle of rebirth, and that the way life is usually lived is as good as it gets.

 

[Balerion]

I can't help you if you don't read what I say.

E.g.

I read what you wrote. Putting "could" in bold doesn't change anything.

 

[wynn]

We are never sure about anything but we can think something is true based on our place in life. If one jumps out into the street in front of a car, then one can expect to be smashed. It's a matter of sensory input being evaluated all our lives and then conclusions about truth being drawn. I mentioned earlier something to the effect that truth is true within our existence. There is always the chance we are wrong, but evidence says otherwise. For example, X event has always resulted in Y effect.

The instances where we have that kind of knowledge about things that really matter to us, seem relatively few.
I yet have to see a moral issue - and moral issues are, arguably, the most important ones to humans - that can be resolved empirically.

I've seen a lot of people lately improperly using appeal to consequences as a reason to accept or not the truth of something. Bad consequences being brought to light by a belief don't invalidate what is believed.

It's called morality.

Without using an analogy to our everyday lives, one could just say God doesn't exist any longer but the natural laws do.

That sounds more like a case of "God is not involved in ways I like."

Or we'd just have to consider other possible explanations.

We have done that a lot and the results don't hold up to evaluation.

Let's summarize then:

1. Currently, there are many theistic religious doctrines available to us to reflect on them.
2. These theistic religious doctrines offer quite different perspectives on God, ourselves, life.
3. We have no certainty about which one is the right one, or whether any of them is right at all.

4. And yet you insist on focusing on the Abrahamic ones. Why?

 

[wynn]

I read what you wrote. Putting "could" in bold doesn't change anything.

Then you will have to add possibility operators to your mental arsenal.